Saturday, April 12, 2008

The New Party Invitation

And so it has begun. We are now being invited to birthday parties for little kids. Not that we haven't been invited in the past. It's just that we never had children before so it never seemed like a fun way to spend a Saturday with dozens of screaming little kids and bad pizza and too much cake (what I imagine little kids birthday parties to include).

We will be attending our first little kid birthday party next week for a 2 year old boy. I will bring Joey who loves to play with "big" kids and will leave Lyra with my mother. Here's my dilemma. Do we bring a gift (the invitation doesn't say not to). What do we bring? How much do we spend?

It seems like it should be a simple thing to figure out but I really need some help with ideas. I always get caught up in "oh he probably already has a dump truck/toy cell phone/stuffed doggy." And "I'm sure clothes are soooo boring for little boys to receive." And "He is the only child with upper middle class parents. What could he possibly need/want?"

Even though I have three nephews, I can't for the life of me remember what I got them when each of them turned 2.

So, any advice for a first-time 40-something mom who is attending her first official little kid birthday party?

3 Comments:

I adore you. I wish you lived in NY, we'd do lunch. Okay with three kids here goes. We get invited to literally 50 parties a year. I kid you not. Three kids, times three (22 student-sized classrooms--you can see the math, right?) So, we only go to very close friends. Like four per child, per year. I get a ten to fifteen dollar gift certificate to Border's bookstore. At first, I admit, I felt like it was cheesy. But now after two years of doing this, other moms stopped me at school functions and thanked me for getting "such a unique gift" reminding us all to read more.

Sometimes I do a little cloth I(felt) gift bag from the dollar store. I add stuff that is just fun but is looseable, i.e stickers, which kids love, washclothes that grow when you add water, flubber type stuff, small little flip books, blank notebooks for drawing with nice covers, playdooh. Depending on the store depends on the goodies. Usually I'll spend $10ish. Also I have given fun kids dishes, i.e. (melamine) monkey plate, matching cup and bowl from a department store. Another thought is a mini photoalbum with a picture of your son to start it and any pictures you may have of the two kids together. Hope those help.